Good morning. Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 62. Sunrise is 5:39 AM and sunset 8:02 PM for 14h 22m 59s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 35.4% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1992, Michigan ratifies a 203-year-old proposed amendment to the United States Constitution making the 27th Amendment law.…
Planning
Daily Bread, Nature, Planning, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 12.7.21: Bad Plans and Bad Planners Behind Wisconsin’s Wolf Hunt
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 21. Sunrise is 7:12 AM and sunset 4:20 PM for 9h 07m 57s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 14.6% of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Common Council meets at 6:30 PM. On this day in 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy carries…
Aside, City, Local Government, Planning, School District
Problems of Small-Town Planning
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Problems of small-town planning are not from lack of plans, they’re from lack of judgment and foresight. Even the smallest towns have plans, regulations, task forces, etc. Problems come from planners (both professionals and residents on committees) who lack the judgment to distinguish between big and small matters (and so waste time on the small).…
City, Local Government, Planning
Whitewater Planning Commission, 7.13.20: Almost Normal
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Whitewater’s Planning Commission met on Monday evening, 7.13.20. A video of the full meeting is embedded above. (See also, 7.13.20 meeting agenda.) A few remarks: Recording. The best record of a meeting is a recording. A recording is more thorough than mere notes (although they must be submitted, too). A recording is, needless to say,…
Coronavirus, Federal Government, Local Government, Planning, Politics, Public Health, State Government
A Necessary Public Policy Question
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Now, and ending one knows not when, public policy proposals that involve human interaction should address, as a necessary element, the question of whether the coronavirus pandemic affects the proposal. A person might assume that he could walk through a forest without ever encountering a wolf, and even convince himself that, by power of suggestion…
Bad Ideas, Boosterism, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Planning, Poverty, WEDC
Declines, Recessions, and Rhetoric
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
While yesterday was a bad day for the financial markets, it’s the underlying – and troubling – fundamental condition of the economy that matters far more. Places like Whitewater, that adopted business special interests’ “if-you-build-it-they-will-come” approach despite increasing poverty and stagnation in household and individual incomes, are especially vulnerable to a downturn. Market Declines. Steven…
Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Government Spending, Hunger, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government, Planning, Poverty, State Capitalism, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, WEDC, Wisconsin
The Fight Against Gravity
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The Trump Administration wants to bolster industries that are market failures, with coal as an example. Catherine Rampell writes of that effort in The Trump administration learns that fighting gravity is hard: The Trump administration is learning that, as new data show that the industries it has worked hardest to prop up — through bailouts, tariffs…
CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Culture, Distraction, Economy, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government, Marketing, Planning, Politics, Poverty, State Capitalism, WEDC
The Two Questions that Haunt Old Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Two questions haunt Old Whitewater (where Old Whitewater is a state of mind rather than an age or a particular person): What does it mean to be a college town? and What is meaningful community development? (There are other serious questions, but one can be sure – at the least – that these two have Whitewater…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Development, Economy, Government Spending, Local Government, Marketing, Planning, Poverty, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
A Candid Admission from the Whitewater CDA
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Sometimes, however rarely, even in places with the most stubborn boosterism, an official admits – wittingly or unwittingly – the failure of longstanding policy. Dave Carlson, executive director of the Whitewater Community Development Authority, is such an official. In a press release from March 27th, lauding a provision of the Trump tax bill, Carlson quotes…
CDA, City, Development, Local Government, Marketing, Planning
Hey, CDA: What About the Existing Marketing Plan?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
At tonight’s Community Development Authority meeting, agenda item number 14 surprisingly calls for “Discussion and Possible Action on Community Collaborative Marketing.” Perhaps this means a change to Whitewater’s existing community collaborative marketing plan. Our city leaders have been clear, for many years, about how to market the community. Indeed, other parts of the municipal government…
City, Culture, Demographics, Development, Economy, Free Markets, Good Ideas, Local Government, Planning, Politics, Poverty
Dane, Not the WOW Counties
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
For many years, Republicans have railed against Madison, and against Dane County, as bastions of dysfunctional liberalism. Indeed, this impulse has been strong even after the GOP gained control of both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s office. Funny, though, that it’s Dane County – not the WOW counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee, or Washington – that’s…
City, Development, Economy, Laws/Regulations, Local Government, Planning
What a Print Advertiser Means (and Doesn’t Mean)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
So, if one lives in Whitewater, he or she may find a shopper-advertiser in the mailbox, with ads from (mostly) out-of-city advertisers. Even if one omits the publisher’s own ads, and public service announcements, the ratio of out-of-city to Whitewater ads is something like 3 to 1. Indeed, the largest ad, on the front page,…
City, Demographics, Development, Laws/Regulations, Local Government, Planning
The Planning of the Planning Commission’s Subcommittee
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Whitewater’s Planning Commission Subcommittee on Housing recently met on 1.17.18. They had single-family homes and rental properties on their minds. (The discussion is embedded below, and the city’s file is online.) One could have had this same housing discussion ten or fifteen years ago, and yet, and yet – here we are, ten or fifteen…
Architecture, City, Laws/Regulations, Planning
A Second Empire Bed & Breakfast
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Near the middle of college-town Whitewater, there’s a large Second Empire bed & breakfast that the owners are looking to sell. Whitewater’s Planning Commission, on 1.8.18 in the video clip above, had numerous questions for the prospective buyers. The request afterward met with rejection as a change in zoning & conditional use at Whitewater’s Planning…